Caterpillar orders George Elwood (Fallen Flag RRs) to remove pics of EMD manuals.

[FONT=&quot]A lawyer representing Caterpillar sent a letter to George Ellwood (Fallen Flag Railroads at http://www.rr-fallenflags.org) requeting that he remove photos of copies from locomotive manuals of EMD products http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cat-ltr.gif.

Legally, Caterpillar can enforce a trademark restriction. What they don't realize is the free publicity they get by their products constantly being displayed in model form and the negative publicity they receive by such actions.Major corporations and organizations don't care about bad publicity as evidenced by Ford constantly recalling cars because they explode when they get rear ended (Pinto and Crown Victorias in Police Specs), Walmart stripping municipality coffers, and cities building brand new stadiums despite cutbacks accross the board. Ford is still one of the best selling cars worldwide, Walmart enjoys a constant stream of profits, and stadiums are still being celebrated.We can all email Cat

The bottom line, as long as they are at the top of the profit food chain, who cares what the little guy thinks? It's all about the Benjamins. Guys like George Elwood who operate their railfan sites at no profit and relying on donations to help support the site (notice the lack of advertisements on the website) do not have the resources to take on companies like Caterpillar in the legal arena. We can all mail their legal team, but the legal team also has delete options in their email. If we are going to email anyone, we should email Caterpillar's Public Relations Department, the CEO of Caterpillar, and emails of support to George Elwood in case he needs it for legal purposes later on as well as moral support. It's tough being picked on by bullies.

This brings me to my next point. What happens to models of EMD's products? Will there be licensing on all models of E&F Units, NWs, SWs, GPs, ans SDs? If model builders have to pay licensing fees due to their profiting from these models, will that drive the cost of a model without DC to prices that are higher than brass?[/FONT]

 

I understand about copyrighted intellectual properties. As far as pricing is concerned, If I buy a GP7 lettered for the New York Central, how much royalty has to go to Caterpillar and CSX? It depends on what they want to charge for royalties. For now, many companies are not going crazy with it. Down the road, who knows.

 

What I am wondering... dont copyright laws and patent laws have any bearing here? Patents are for a given time limit as are copyrights. @ bremner & Mike Kieran... I have a p/t job at a nearby suburban hardware store. We cut copies of keys for the public. A normal,run-of-the-mill, house key costs $2.49 to duplicate. That price is material and labor. If you want a "novelty" key blank for say,
a Disney or Warner Bros. cartoon character or other "Brand Name" keys, the price goes as high as $5.99 p/copy. That increase is the licensing fees. The hardware corporation has no control over that.
We went thru this several years ago with the U.P.RR and their licensing brouhaha!

Charlie

 

We're really talking trademark here which is what the key example relates to. The letter is poorly written.

I can only assume that CAT/EMD either
1: Wants to make money on selling old manuals and so free ones on the internet are not in their interest. In which case, sucks to be fallen flags, but they have that right.
or
2: They want their I's doted and their T's crossed and so they want to be asked for permission first.

In which case, it's just a matter of formality.